


hear my soul speak

by 51stCenturyFox



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Episode Tag, Episode: s09e22 Stairway to Heaven, Love Confessions, M/M, pre-finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 15:48:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/pseuds/51stCenturyFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel sinks to the floor outside the room where they're holding Dean. Not holding. Keeping. Keeping him. <i>Keeping him safe</i>, he tells himself. </p><p>One arm caught on his knee, he dips his head, weary. Dean's voice filters through the door, rusty and deep.</p><p>"Cas?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	hear my soul speak

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dorkilysoulless (custodian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/custodian/gifts), [lawsontl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawsontl/gifts).



Castiel sinks to the floor outside the room where they're holding Dean. Not holding. Keeping. Keeping him. _Keeping him safe_ , he tells himself. Sam's gone back to the warm light of the library, or to the kitchen, where he's probably putting something together to sustain himself. Castiel will help, will bring food back to Dean, if he's even hungry. Dean's...he's not himself. Castiel isn't sure he hungers anymore, or sleeps through the night.

He misses watching Dean sleep, lashes fluttering through a dream, his indignation when he wakes and finds Castiel there. _Weird,_ he calls it. But what's so strange about making sure Dean is safe? Castiel still isn't sure why that might be odd, but even if it is, he fails to care.

One arm caught on his knee, he dips his head, weary. Dean's voice filters through the door, rusty and deep.

"Cas?"

Of course. Of course Dean knows he's still here. He'd have heard Sam's footsteps echo down the hall and his own return, and the slide of Castiel's coat against the door.

"You're not gonna leave me in here, are you?"

Castiel scrubs a hand over his face, the familiar shadow of not-quite-there beard that doesn't require...anything as long as his stolen grace holds. "Dean," he says, pained, because he can't _not_ answer, can't pretend he isn't here. Still, he's not sure what else he can say.

"C'mon, Cas," Dean says, voice low, and he's right up against the door behind Castiel's back. "There's nothing to worry about."

"Oh, I think there is," he replies, and Dean is silent.

"I wouldn't, I won't..." Dean says. "I was pissed, alright? Understandable. Gadreel killed Kevin, and...and he just fuckin' shows up here?"

Castiel doesn't reply. It's true.

"Shoulda ended him when I had the chance before. I...I just saw his face, just, he offered his hand like he hadn't killed Kevin right here in the friggin' bunker, and flashed to that poor kid, lying there. Gone. Just gone, Cas."

"I know."

Castiel hears the slide of bootheels on concrete, knows Dean's sitting on the floor too.

"I had to _burn_ him, to ash," Dean pauses. "It fell on me. Sam was gone, thanks to Gadreel. Me. I took his body out back, over the hillock where that clearing is, and I laid down...twigs and brush, and Kevin. And I stayed until the job was done."

"You had to," Castiel states the obvious, but his eyes are wet. They shouldn't be. He still has grace. He shouldn't be capable of tears; he was fully human for so short a time in his long life, and yet it had left its mark on him, like Dean's mark, only different in the most elemental way. "And I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, well..."

"Dean, I mean that...I'm sorry you had to do it alone." There's a pause then, and Castiel imagines he can hear Dean breathe through the hefty door.

"Let me _out_."

Castiel looks down at his hands. "...I can't."

"You got a raw deal, Cas," Dean says, after a long moment, and Castiel lifts his head. "What the hell were you thinking?" He doesn't answer. He's not sure where Dean's going with this, so he's quiet, just listening. "You...you traded me for your damned angel army. Then you lock me up, and in here? In here, I'm fuckin' useless." 

"Dean?"

Dean sighs loudly. "It's not...it's not that I don't appreciate the vote of confidence and all, but picking me over those angel dicks -- and I'm sorry, they're still dicks -- ain't gonna do much good if I'm in here and not out there, facing down Metatron with the blade." He's almost begging. "Come on, let me do what you want me for, man."

Castiel presses the heel of his hand against his brow. 

"Come _on_ ," Dean pleads. 

"That's not..." Castiel mutters, then repeats himself, louder. "That's not why I chose you over them, Dean."

...and Castiel knows things now, things Dean knows. He's been given decades, ages, of cultural history, but he realizes that this knowledge is imperfect, and that anything he says won't be right, won't be enough. 

Dean Winchester is wrong, though. And Castiel can't let that stand, let that go. He rises, slowly, to his feet, presses his hand against the door Dean's leaning against on the other side.

"That's not why, Dean," he says, wanting more than anything to pull back the heavy handles of the door, to stride in, to pull Dean to his feet and hold him, to plant kisses along his hairline, to hold him, and show him how much he cares.

_"We'll always have Paris."_

_“I knew it the minute I met you. I'm sorry it took so long for me to catch up. I just got stuck.” "...because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”_

_"Hear my soul speak:_  
The very instant that I saw you, did  
My heart fly to your service." 

_"...that's the life I want. I want an adventure with you."_

Because others' words won't do, because they're secondhand, because they're pretty fictions, because they don't express what Castiel needs to say, he leaves them unspoken.

Instead, he presses his temple to the door, over his hand. He closes his eyes, sensing Dean's presence beyond the barrier, and he says, "Dean. I love you, Dean. I love you so much," before he pushes away and strides down the hallway back to the library.

His words aren't as pretty, but he hopes they'll be enough.


End file.
